In 1 Corinthians 15, the Bible reads in verse 1, "Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you
the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand,
by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye
have believed in vain."
So I want to spend a moment talking about these first two verses, but this whole chapter
is about the resurrection.
This is pretty much the resurrection chapter of the Bible.
It's well-known as being a chapter that deals with the resurrection.
It's just packed with doctrine.
I'm going to try to cover the most important points as quickly as I can tonight.
But he starts out by saying that the gospel is what saves us, and of course it says in
Romans 1-16, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God
unto salvation to everyone that believeth to the Jew first and also to the Greek."
Now, some people will point out that phrase at the end of verse two that says, "Unless
ye have believed in vain," and they'll try to twist this scripture to say, "Well, see
right there, believing's not enough to save you," they'll say.
Because they'll say that, you know, "You could believe in vain.
You might believe in its vain, so therefore believing's not enough."
Well, need I go through all the scriptures that tell us that believing is all that it
takes to be saved?
I mean, I just quoted you Romans 1:16, which stated that, "But what about that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life?
What about the fact that Jesus said, 'Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die'?
He said, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him
that sent me has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed
from death unto life.
He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already,
because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.'
He said, 'Well, believe he's not enough, though.
You have to believe and have works.'
Yeah, but the Bible says, 'But to him that worketh not, but believeth,' proving that
it's possible to have faith without works.
He says, 'But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness.'
Even as David also described it, 'The blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness
without works,' saying, 'Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins
are covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.'
So you say, 'Well, what does that mean then?'
Because they say, 'Well, you know, believed in vain, that means it's possible to believe
and not be saved.'
For whoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.
But what he's saying here, obviously, if it's possible to believe in vain, common sense
would tell you that if you're believing in vain, that just means you're believing, you
obviously believe the wrong thing.
Because if you believed in Christ, you'd be saved.
If you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, he said, 'Thou shalt be saved.'
But look at the phrase that comes right before it.
He says, 'If you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.'
So he doesn't just leave us to wonder what it means by believing in vain.
He tells us what that is.
It's people who don't even remember what he had preached unto them, and then he tells
us what that is in verse 3.
"For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died
for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again
the third day according to the Scriptures."
So according to the Bible here, the good news or the gospel is the fact that Jesus died
and was buried, and that he rose again.
And what the Bible is saying here, you know, it's defining itself for it.
It tells us what the gospel is.
It tells us that the gospel saves us, but it tells us that if we don't remember what
the gospel was, if we don't keep in memory what he told us, then we must have believed
in vain, meaning we did not believe the right thing.
Now let me just give you an illustration of this.
Let's say I give somebody the gospel, right, and I show them from the Bible how to be saved,
and I go through a bunch of Scriptures.
I take them down the Roman's road and show them a bunch of Scriptures, and that person,
you know, prays a prayer to ask the Lord Jesus Christ to save them.
I can't really see their heart, right?
I mean, I'm just going to take their word for what they're saying, but I can't really
know for sure.
Let's say I go back and talk to that person a week later, and they don't remember a thing
that I told them.
They don't, you know, and I ask them, "Well, what do you think a person has to do to be
saved?"
"I have no idea."
You know, "Well, Jesus died on the cross.
What happened three days later?"
I don't know.
Do you think that that person really got saved?
No.
They obviously didn't understand.
Because a lot of people, the reason why they don't get saved, the Bible's real clear.
They don't get saved because they don't understand the gospel.
That's the number one reason why people do not get saved, because they don't understand
the gospel.
And the Bible's real clear on that.
In Matthew 13, when he gives the parable of the sower, he says, "If anyone heareth the
word of the kingdom and understandeth it not, then cometh that wicked one and catcheth away
that which was sown in his heart."
This is he that received seed by the wayside.
So the Bible talks about people hearing the gospel, not understanding it.
And so a lot of times, you know, when you're feeding people all the answers, you know,
you're feeding them all the right answers.
See right here, it says, you know, you might walk them through something and pray with
them.
But you know what?
If you talk to that person later and they don't remember what salvation is or they don't
remember what the gospel is, you know, that pretty much tells you, okay, this person did
not comprehend what I showed them because they're not able to retain it.
You know, when you hear stuff that you don't understand, it's very hard to memorize it
or to learn it or to keep it in memory.
But when you hear something that you understand and it makes sense, you're going to remember
it.
It makes, you know, especially, you know, the fact that when you believe on Christ, the
Holy Ghost comes inside of your heart and lives inside you.
If you're indwelled by the Holy Spirit, you understood the gospel, you're going to remember
what the gospel is.
Now, keep in mind, Paul is preaching to people about whom, you know, he's doubting their
resurrection.
I mean, their salvation is being called into question.
Because later in the chapter, he begins to talk about how many of them are now teaching
that there is no resurrection.
Are those people saved?
Absolutely not.
And that's what he's saying.
Look, if you don't believe in the resurrection of Christ, if you don't believe in the death
barrel and resurrection of Christ, you're not saved.
And the gospel is what saves you, but if you didn't believe in the resurrection, he's saying,
you believed in vain.
You believed the wrong thing.
You don't even remember the fact that I taught clearly both the resurrection of Christ and
also the future resurrection of believers, that just shows that you did not even understand
the gospel.
You don't even remember what I preached to you.
You believed in vain.
Whatever you believed was the wrong thing.
Because look, if you believe in Jesus, but you don't believe in the resurrection, you
believed in vain.
Because you can say, "Well, I believe in Jesus."
Yeah, but do you believe the record that God gave of his son, that God has given us eternal
life and that this life is in his son?
Do you believe that that salvation comes through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ?
For example, if you talk to the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Jehovah's False Witnesses, they'll tell
you that they believe in Christ, won't they?
If you ask the Jehovah's False Witness, "Do you believe in Jesus?"
They'll say, "Yes."
Right?
But do they believe in the resurrection of Christ?
No.
Therefore, they believed in vain.
Do you see what I'm saying?
And if I talk to somebody that I gave the gospel to last week, and a week later they
don't remember it, they obviously didn't get saved.
It's pretty simple when you actually let the passages define itself like that.